Graphene oxide improves the biocompatibility of collagen membranes in an in vitro model of human primary gingival fibroblasts

Commercial collagen membranes are used in oral surgical procedures as scaffolds for bone deposition in guided bone regeneration. Here, we have enriched them with graphene oxide (GO) via a simple non-covalent functionalization and exploiting the capacity of oxygenated carbon functional moieties of GO to interact through hydrogen bonding with collagene. In the present paper, the GO-coated membranes have been characterized in terms of stability, nano-roughness, biocompatibility and induction of inflammatory response towards HGFs cells. The obtained coated membranes demonstrate to not leak GO in the bulk solution and to change some features of the membrane, such as stiffness and adhesion of the membrane for the AFM tip. Moreover, the presence of GO increases the roughness and the total surface exposed to the cells as demonstrated by AFM analyses. The obtained material is biocompatible and does not induce inflammation in the tested cells.